Juventas drug shows 'therapeutic potential' in heart attack patients

A drug developed by Juventas Therapeutics showed “therapeutic potential” during a Phase II clinical trial involving 93 heart attack patients, according to a statement from the Cleveland company.
The drug works like a stem cell therapy: It's designed to trick the body into sending more stem cells to the site of an injury than it otherwise would, thereby speeding up the healing process.
Juventas plans to release data from the study in mid-May.
The STOP-HF study demonstrated that the drug, JVS-100, “has therapeutic potential for patients with advanced heart failure,” said Juventas CEO Rahul Aras.
The company was founded in 2007 by Dr. Marc Penn, who at the time was a Cleveland Clinic cardiologist. Today, he is director of cardiovascular research at Summa Health System.
“The patients studied in STOP-HF comprise a population that are already on optimal medical therapy and whose heart failure is rapidly progressing,” Penn stated in a news release. “JVS-100 has been shown in multiple pre-clinical and Phase I studies to slow or reverse disease progression.”
Juventas plans to present the Phase II data during the European Society of Cardiology Heart Failure Congress in Athens, Greece.